New Detroit report uncovers racial, ethnic gaps not commonly known

A new report from New Detroit Inc. documents long-held gaps between racial and ethnic groups in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties in areas such as education, income levels, home ownership and business ownership — but some of its data findings aren’t as commonly known.

For example, 56 percent of the Hispanic or Latino population in Detroit didn’t earn a high school diploma. That compares to nearly a third of American Indian/Alaskan natives, 28 percent of Asian populations, 24 percent of white residents and 21 percent of black or African-American residents not completing high school, according to the first-ever Metropolitan Detroit Race Equity Report.

“That’s something that’s never been a part of the conversation,” said New Detroit President and CEO Shirley Stancato.

Among other findings, the report showed that African-American, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian/Alaskan Native students living in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties lag behind their white counterparts in educational achievement, household income, per-capita income and home ownership.

For example, 80 percent of whites living in the three counties own their homes, compared to 50, 45 and 34 percent of African Americans living in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties, respectively, according to the report.

And in Macomb and Wayne counties, African Americans’ use of public transportation exceeds that of other racial/ethnic groups.

New Detroit is hoping to use the report to influence both its own efforts and policy discussions around topics such as transportation, business creation and home ownership in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.

“There are disparities ... (and) structural barriers, and there need to be systemic responses,” said Paul Hillegonds, a member of the New Detroit Board of Trustees and chairman of Metro Detroit's new Regional Transit Authority.

Detroit will be stronger following its emergence from bankruptcy, he said.

However, “this data really raises questions about (Detroit’s) sustainability if we don’t address some of these issues.”

The inaugural report, created with assistance from Data Driven Detroit, is based on 2007-2011 data from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey and on data specific to the Arab American community provided by the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. (While the U.S. government categorizes Arab Americans as “white,” many in the community consider themselves a separate ethnicity, New Detroit said.)

The report, available at www.newdetroit.org/cms, also includes examples of programs and companies working to close the “pervasive divide” based on race such as the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, ACCESS, Bridgewater Interiors LLC, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and SER Metro-Detroit, among others.